These Americans Are Done With Politics - The New York Times - 0 views
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A deep new study of the American electorate, “Hidden Tribes,” concludes that two out of three Americans are far more practical than that narrative suggests. Most do not see their lives through a political lens, and when they have political views the views are far less rigid than those of the highly politically engaged, ideologically orthodox tribes.
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The study, an effort to understand the forces that drive political polarization, surveyed a representative group of 8,000 Americans. The nonpartisan organization that did it, More in Common, paints a picture of a society that is far more disengaged — and despairing over divisions — than it is divided. At its heart is a vast and often overlooked political middle that feels forgotten in the vitrio
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The study found that nearly half of the Exhausted Majority say they have not been politically active in the past year, compared with just 1 percent of the Progressive Activists and Devoted Conservatives, the two least flexible and most ideological of the seven political tribes identified in the study. Forty-one percent said they did not vote in 2016.
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The study shows that most Americans have political tastes that are not uniform: They may lean toward one party, but they see things they like in both. Its findings suggest a deep hunger for political leaders who are practical and not tribal — who do not cast the world in starkly moral terms, but in bread-and-butter policy terms.
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It concluded that four in five Americans believe that the country has a problem with “political correctness,” which many said made them feel bad but also bewildered — a set of rules they had not learned to decode
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“I guess I would have to say that I’m completely confused as to who is lying and who is telling the truth,” Ms. Vetter said. “I just feel helpless.”
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The study found that members of the Exhausted Majority are more likely than those on the far ends of the political spectrum to be women, less likely to have a college or graduate degree, less likely to be white and more likely to be young
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Fatigue with the noise of politics is so deep, he said, that it might strengthen the chances of candidates offering to be less nakedly partisan.
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I think you can win in 2020 by promising that if you become president, people can go back to talking about football.”
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The study describes a Democratic base that looks far less like the progressive left and more like the American mainstream. Elizabeth Damon, 54, a veterinarian in Eagle Point, Ore., is a registered Democrat because “I really don’t think anybody should be able to tell me what to do with my own body.” But she also thinks the party has drifted too far left, and in 2016 she voted for Donald Trump
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on immigration, Mr. Baltimore prefers Mr. Trump. The Democrats “are just willing to accept anything, anybody and anyone, and that doesn’t fly good with me,” he said.
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“The progressives, they just shut you down,” said Mr. Bell, who works on electrical systems of semitrucks. “You are a complete idiot, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t have a college degree to even have an opinion on the matter.”